Amoeba Culture terminates contract with E-Sens

Member E-Sens (real name Kang Minho) of hip hop duo Supreme Team's sudden announcement of his contract termination could lead to Supreme Team on the brink of disbanding. 


According to a representative from Amoeba Culture, they said in a press release, "We are notifying the public that beginning of July 19th, 2013, we have notified Kang Minho (E-Sens) in his termination of his contract. Also, E-Sens will no longer be an artist under the label," which was released on the 22nd. 
They also spoke with news outlet My Daily in saying, "We split from E-Sens because the paths we were thinking musically were different. Meanwhile, Simon D will remain promoting as an artist under Amoeba Culture." 

In the topic of Supreme Team disbanding, they responded, "Honestly, Supreme Team was a project group so 'disbanding' wouldn't be a fitting term for this situation" and "It is true however that Supreme Team are parting their own ways. From now on, they will promote solo in their respective musical paths." 

When asked about Simon D's upcoming solo promotions, they said, "Simon D has continually been preparing an album in the meantime, however we haven't asked him in detail about his solo album. It's unconfirmed for now." 

Supreme Team made their debut back in 2009 and created hits with tracks such as "Then, Then, Then" and "Why." In 2010, they won the MelOn Music Award for rap and hip hop as well as received an award in the 20th Seoul Gayo Awards for hip hop. recognizing their name as a skilled group in the industry.

However, E-Sens was caught for marijuana in the beginning of last year and took a time of reflection for two years. Last March, he participated in the 2013 break project 'NOWorkend' from Amoeba Culture with the new track "Stay Still," renouncing his comeback after a long while. Despite gathering attention and anticipation for his comeback promotions, no one knew that the reality of it was that he was on the ledge of disbandment. 

Source: My Daily via Nate


During the time that E-Sens's name was fluctuating on the top 10 names of major portal search engines last night, both members of Supreme Team tweeted in regards to the news in their own respective ways.


E-Sens tweeted, "Yes, I received my notification of my contract termination today - I will be promoting solo" while Simon D tweeted a beautiful essay saying, "This is the path that would make Sens only happy and I respect his decision. It's just that we won't be promoting as a team but our friendship of 10 years hasn't changed a bit. Because both of us have started going solo, I think all we need to do now is to show each other doing well within I.K (Illest Konfusion)."


So, what happens now? 


Well for one, we're all pretty sure that major labels of the underground scene are finding ways to contact E-Sens to see if they can contract him. For one, E-Sens is a very skilled rapper. That itself could serve as the only reason why labels want to sign him. 

If we had to choose another, it'd be his marijuana scandal. Why? Despite him doing wrong, he admitted to his wrong, which makes a big difference. He took time off sacrificing his solo album and Supreme Team promotions for the sake of reflecting on his actions. Netizens and the Korean general public may hate you for smoking weed but if you seem like you care enough about what they think and do what they want (in this case, reflect reflect reflect!), they're more forgiving of the issue. So, why does this scandal serve as a factor as to why labels want to sign him? It's a sob story. Everyone loves sob stories. Play your cards right with your media play and you have a brilliant, skilled artist who has a sob story that people can sympathize for, compare in the case with a certain artist who shall not be named, and say that you as a label picked him up when a company abandoned him in his time of need to rise him up to where he is today. Voila, there you have it. 

Now, the question remains as to who will be picking him up. As I write here time and time again, there aren't much labels in the underground scene other than Grandline Entertainment, Hi-Lite Records, and Illionaire Records. Out of those three, I would say Grandline or Hi-Lite would be the better choices. We all know E-Sens isn't about that flashy gold chain life like Illionaire is, so obviously they're out of the question. Meanwhile, Grandline has what it takes to get E-Sens where he was before he was abandoned, getting him back into mainstream as they are doing now with their breadwinner artist Geeks. Plus, the artists under Grandline are fairly close with E-Sens as he has made appearances for their concerts in the past. For Hi-Lite, I would say they would be the better choice musically, although Hi-Lite has their own sound they push for as a label but I can see E-Sens fitting in to give them a little break from their usual redundancy.

And as I have mentioned in the two past paragraphs of E-Sens being abandoned, I obviously used this specific word because I believe this is truly the case. Others may disagree and agree with Amoeba's case like most netizens who know jack shit but those who have followed Supreme Team let alone just E-Sens, everyone knows that it all seems unfitting of how beautiful of a story Amoeba Culture made this out to be despite them being the ones to terminate his contract. 

Just four months ago, E-Sens was gearing up for a comeback with Simon D for a Supreme Team album after having released the NOWorkend Project as a renouncement of their comeback. After their group album, they were supposed to release their respective solo albums (E-Sens's album which was heavily delayed) sometime in the future. Everything seemed well planned out it seemed so what happened in the past few months to lead to this turnover?

These are all speculations of course so do take it with a grain of salt but I believe that it has to be either of these three. Yes, it has to be one. 

1. E-Sens had a rift with Amoeba/Simon D on both personal terms and musical terms 
2. Enlisting in the military sometime soon.
3. E-Sens is still smoking weed and Amoeba doesn't want to deal with it

For one, everyone knows that Simon D and E-Sens have been friends for over 10 years like he praised in his tweet but doesn't it seem too suspicious that not only is E-Sens kicked out basically from Amoeba, but that they're not promoting as Supreme Team anymore as well? Despite the press releases saying that Supreme Team was a project group, everyone knows better that Supreme Team was the prodigy that pulled Amoeba out of the dust when they had nothing left, especially during the time when Dynamic Duo had enlisted for the military. Doesn't it also seem highly suspicious that while Amoeba and Simon D were trying to wrap this whole situation up so nicely that E-Sens says nothing but the fact that he was given notice of his contract termination?

If not a rift between personal relations, it has to be music. As many of you may have seen and known already, Amoeba has been building their way up into the mainstream side of the music industry. Take Dynamic Duo for example. They're still hip hop but a hip hop with a different spin to it. It still has the generic hip hop beat with their smooth flows, but the lyrics have changed and so has the genre within their songs. What used to be lyrics contemplating about life, shitting on other artists, or having fun getting wasted with friends has now turned into sappy love stories and soft beats. I don't deny that I like this part of Dynamic Duo because in general I love anything that's an easy going, smooth listen but of course it's not what should only make Dynamic Duo. But this is what the public likes, and this is what gets them noticed. So what does Amoeba do? Polish them up to be these two guys with 'hunky' voices romanticizing hip hop to sway the ladies. Seriously, the last 3 Dynamic Duo albums proves this and so does their recent comeback where it's just all fangirls at their performances for music shows. With their other artists like Zion.T also pushing for mainstream, it's undeniable that Amoeba wants this for Supreme Team as well, especially with how much public recognition Supreme Team already has however, I don't think E-Sens wants any of this. If anything, he'd rather make clean versions for certain songs but he still wants to remain who he is with his character. Also, keep in mind that with everyone in Amoeba having gone mainstream, basically E-Sens was the only connection they had keeping them linked to the underground scene. I guess the ultimatum to E-Sens was to join mainstream and stick with Amoeba or pursue his own music and stay underground, so he chose the latter.

The second speculation is what I've seen on the Korean hip hop DC Gallery. Nothing new there except that he is in the age to enlist. Last but not least with the third, who knows. He seemed like he didn't want to do it again after having done interviews about how much he wanted to come back and make music but then again that could have been a bone to throw at the public while he still smoked behind their backs. If not, I assume that the NOWorkend Project was a test in the waters for Amoeba to see if E-Sens still had the public's attention and if he didn't, they found it as a result of his marijuana scandal and thought it was too difficult to recover him from it.

All in all, there's nothing anyone can do but speculate up until E-Sens makes his own comeback with whatever he's going to come back with and pay attention to the lyrics to see if he drops hints. I'm sorry (not sorry) that this turned out to be an editorial's worthy-length of a post but I felt like this was needed since it's been a while that something big of an issue like this hit the fan in Korean hip hop.

[INTERVIEW] Amoeba Culture's Break Project: NOWorkend NO. 4 with Supreme Team

Upon Request

 ----

After ending their long hiatus, Supreme Team returns with their digital single album “Thanks 4 the Wait” as the fourth contender for Amoeba Culture’s ‘NOWorkend’ project. After nearly 2 years, Simon D and E-Sens come back to the stage as “Supreme Team” with the release of their new song “You Just Have to Stay as You Are” featuring Crush. 

The album’s title song “You Just Have to Stay as You Are” serves as a message to those who are worried of their future and are unsure of reality. The song is also fitting with Supreme Team as this serves as a new beginning for the duo since it’s applicable to them as well. We were able to hold an interview with the two men of Supreme Team in getting a further look into their project album and new song. 

Q: We’re able to finally meet with Supreme Team after a long while through the ‘NOWorkend’ project. The expectations were high seeing that the previous contenders were Gaeko, Yankie, and Zion.T. As the fourth contender for this project, we are curious as to how you came to join this project. We also assume that there is pressure for the upcoming songs you will release seeing that the reaction from the audience was hot. 

E-SENS: In listening to how the tracks released from the ‘NOWorkend’ project were really exciting, we had thoughts of wanting to join. We’re currently in the midst of working on our official album but seeing how the time in between us working on it now till our release date will have a big gap, there’s a lot of wait time and it’s an even longer wait for me (to come back) personally. In wanting to show the public the thoughts I’m having as of right now, I decided to participate in the ‘NOWorkend’ project. Since it’s been such a long time in releasing a song, I did have slight pressure in the beginning in feeling the need to do better than before but while I was in midst of production, producing was really fun and I was able to wrap it up happily and contently. 

SIMON D: I don’t think there was a great pressure (for me), but I did have a bigger thought of wanting to hurry in letting everyone listen to it. It’s been 2-3 years since Sens and I have worked on something together and when we were writing lyrics and recording the tracks, it made me feel like I was going back in time to the beginning days of Supreme Team which was very enjoyable. During the entire time of production, all I could think about was wanting to hurry in letting everyone listen to it.

Q: The single album’s title is called “Thanks 4 the Wait.” I’m thinking that we should start from this part, so please tell us about the album title.

SIMON D: In seeing how Lil Wayne’s mixtape title was “Sorry 4 the Wait,” we were determined to make our title “Thanks 4 the Wait” for the next upcoming works from Supreme Team. We wanted to show our gratitude to the fans that’ve waited such a long time during our hiatus, so we dedicated the album title to them.

E-SENS: Just like as it’s said, it means we’re thankful for the fans waiting for us. Through SNS or replies, I’ve seen responses like “I want to see you two on stage,” “I’m waiting for an official album from Supreme Team,” etc. and I was really thankful whenever I would read or hear those things. I also want to thank those who haven’t forgot about Supreme Team and continued to wait. 

Q: Please give us an introduction of your title song “You Just Have to Stay as You Are” featuring Crush.

SIMON D: Artist Crush – who made the song and featured in it himself – is an artist of the crew VV:D, a crew led by Zion.T. I think that the song reflects the courses we’ve taken in life and the people we are today. The song’s morals are to not be too insecure about reality and to trust yourself a little more in protecting the place you’re at now. 

E-SENS: All of a sudden, I’m now in my late 20s and I see my friends, hyungs, and dongsengs around me worrying about the future and becoming insecure of reality where they fall into worries in thinking, “Is this truly the job I want to be doing? Is this the right path for me?” In our song “You Just Have to Stay as You Are,” the moral we wanted it to have is that what you’re trusting right now is the right path you’re going down so what you’re doing is sufficient enough, that you just have to stay the way you are.

Q: Despite being in the same genre, we’re curious about the two individual stories you put into your lyrics.

SIMON D: “$300,000 house, my credit card is purple swag, I have no foreign car, and I always have Lebron x on my two feet.” What’s written in my lyrics represents my life exactly as of right now. It shows what I’m doing and I make the effort to show that in my lyrics – you can say the lyrics carry my lifestyle in it. I wanted to tell those who listen to the song but also myself that through the song, I’m doing well and that if you trust yourself a little more, you can continue to do as you do now. 

E-SENS: “Whenever people ask me how I’m doing, I only have one answer that I always reply with and it’s ‘I’m good.’” This part was the only part that I wanted to show and mark as my appearance. To be honest, when people asked me that question, I would reply with that but I don’t think I was doing well at all and it was just a reply out of greeting someone. 

After writing lyrics, I truly think I actually say “I’m good” as an answer now. You can compare this song to the song I participated in Primary’s album called “Poison,” but “You Just Have to Stay as You Are” is a brighter version of it although they hold the same message. My personality is sensitive and tends to beat myself up for things but through this song, I think I really wanted to tell myself that “I’m good” and when we wrapped up in working on the song, I think the thought of “I’m good” crosses my mind more where I can say it now. 

Q: If you could, can you pick out a memorable line from each other’s lyrics? 

E-SENS: “The foot-long gap between success and failure is the first two letters of my address and the source of my money is through my sincerity.”

SIMON D: “The happiness that seemed expensive to me when I was younger was the shining Christian Dior on her wrist. Your personality changes with what you’re wearing and that’s the first impression I had of this city.”  

Q: Your second track “이릿” is unique just from the title, but the mood of the song is a completely different feel from your title track. Could you give us an introduction about this track?

SIMON D: “이릿” was written to have a trap genre with a southern hip hop feel and it was produced by one of our friends TK. You can see this song as a sequel to “땡땡땡.” If I were to explain, “이릿” has a bit of a stronger and rougher feel than “땡땡땡” and the message of the song isn’t just to “have fun,” but to “have even more fun and succeed.” 

E-SENS: If you look at most of Supreme Team’s songs, they all somehow connect with the overlapping theme being “I’ll do well, I’ll do well.” We usually go around about the theme but express it a little differently with each song and in our title song “You Just Have to Stay as You Are,” we express that we’re doing well as of right now while with “이릿” on the other hand, it’s more so that whatever comes across our way, we’ll shut up and do it. The title “이릿” is written in Korean of the English words ‘eat it.’ We thought it’d be fun to write it in Korea so that’s how we chose it as the title. 

Q: There must be a lot of anecdotes on you working together in such a long while. What was the most memorable anecdote while you were working together for this project? 

 

E-SENS: It took 5 times longer to work on this project than our normal producing pace. We edited a verse about 7 times before recording and I think this was the first time we’ve edited that much. Despite us telling each other that this production will be pressure-free, I think internally we felt pressured. Because it’s something that we’re putting out after such a long time, we really thought that we had to do well so we kept on editing it. 

SIMON D: Because it’s been too long since we’ve worked together, I think there was time needed to adjust and unlike our early 20s where we were more so lively, both Sens and I now realize the importance of working together. This is also why I think that we repeated going to the recording booth, writing lyrics, recording, rewriting lyrics, and recording again during the duration of production. There was a day where Sens and I both spent 8 hours at a coffee shop writing lyrics. We spent all night drinking too much coffee and energy drinks so we felt miserable when we were driving back in the morning. The distance from the car to the front gate is only 5 meters but we took 10 minutes to walk because we were wobbling as if we were wasted. I hope everyone is cautious from overdosing on caffeine…

Q: Before the 2013 Amoebahood Concert, this would be the first time you’d be standing on stage as a team in 2 years. I’m pretty sure you had a different feel than the other artists in the lineup, so tell us a little on how you felt before standing on stage. 

SIMON D: I wanted to hurry up and run onto the stage. When I was promoting alone, often times Rhythm Power did help me but the loneliness was even greater. I’ve continuously drawn the image of E-Sens and Simon D having fun on stage together and I truly missed the energy we had on stage as a team. I wanted to work hard in having fun on the stage for the fans that waited and came to see us.

E-SENS: I did have lots of thoughts of wanting to go on the stage in seeing other performances but I think that feeling grew even bigger when I was preparing for the Amoebahood Concert. As the day of the concert approached and we finished the rehearsals, I felt a little nervous. To imagine this empty concert hall that I rehearsed in front of be filled with people made me nervous but really happy.

Q: This project album is a digital single album but it’s also been a long while since you’ve released a new song since the latest one prior was “Then Then Then” from “Ames Room.” After releasing your new song, you held your first stage at the concert after such a long while. This was a song you revealed first to the fans and did you have any resolutions?

SIMON D: What I was slightly worried about was that because this wasn’t a song everyone knew, that it would bring the atmosphere down a little but the thought of it being a special song that we were revealing to those who came to the concert first outweighed it. Because it’s a song we’re revealing for the first time, I’m very nervous.

E-SENS: I was a little hesitant on revealing the song at the concert before the official release, but I did want to let those who came to the concert to see us have the chance to listen to it first since this is the first time in a long whole that Supreme Team has been on stage. 

Q: (After the release of the song) Now you’re awaiting your official release of the song. What are your plans after the digital single release? 

E-SENS: Right now, I want to do everything I can and want. I want to reveal my solo works, release our official album, and do various featuring for other artists and I’m zealous but the most important thing is to release Supreme Team’s official album which I plan on having it be released within this year as the goal.

SIMON D: I think we’ll be performing for a while after the release of the single and will focus on working on our official album. We’ll try aiming for this year, if not sooner to have it be released and as you already know, most hip hop musicians don’t keep their promises but we’ll work hard to keep those promises. 

Source: Mnet

Primary releases single "Poison" featuring E-Sens

Primary releases single "Poison" featuring E-Sens.


After a teaser for the single released a few hours ago, the full MV and song was released through Amoeba Culture's Youtube channel as well as the various online music sites today at 12PM in Korea.

Although this is the pre-release for Primary's upcoming official album, I felt like this served more so as E-Sens's comeback into the hip hop scene. And what better way to come back with one of the hottest producers from the underground breaking into mainstream recently?

Not only that but you can tell by just listening to the track. Everyone knows that this isn't the greatest beat that Primary has made. You have to admit it if you've listened to his past works. This doesn't mean I'm dissing Primary, but I feel like there was a reason as to why.

It's as if he purposely just went for something soft and let E-Sens do the work with his lyrics. To me, it felt like they wanted E-Sens to speak for himself and honestly, I don't even believe he needed the beat. The man was spitting his flow effortlessly and it was almost like a poetry slam, just telling what he wanted. The beat was pretty much there to be a nice feature in adding suspense when E-Sens gets into the climax of the track as well as wrapping up the song with soothing vocals.

Going back to the lyrics, I can't say anything else other than it was beautiful. The way it was written, the analogies he makes, the emotions you can feel with the diction used...everything was perfect. I think this is also why I love E-Sens a lot, because he sounds like he doesn't even try and he's just telling his life story and that goes for most of his raps, showing how laid back he is and that he's kicking his two feet up in the air and saying to the world, "Fuck you, I'm E-Sens." 

Anyway, I'm not really a fan of Amoeba's music videos, but why does that matter when you have one of the greatest producers in the hip hop scene collaborating with one of Korean hip hop's greatest emcees? Take a look at the lyrics and listen to track, and you judge if my bias is acceptable in this case.

Many memories piled with dust with time passed by

The poison filling up my body with time passing by

Lately it’s been growing worse in wanting to be more free and exactly half of me is dead

I can’t see it, but I believe it

For sure that I’ve felt it lead me before

I remember the beginning and empty out all the things that rotted me

I have to catch it, the things I lost

The long vacation up till now

The days when faith that was clenched tightly in my fist was all I said to have had and I’d ridicule everyone in being fearful and old

And now the opposite’s happened, they gave me fear

It was inevitable that I would eventually become like one of them

And it was then when reality told me to look straight

Although it wanted to run, it said that sitting was more comfortable

Every time it’d lie to both me and you

Thanks to the comfort like cigarettes, I was able to grasp my mentality a little

The hidden message behind becoming an adult is just hypnosis and it’s never becoming clearer

I’m just living in my comfort zone and it’s as if I’m a dog being tied away

I only learned these kinds of things

I was fearful for the watch of others as much as I feared gaining courage

I was tired of those states so I told them to go just away

Where my belief pulls me is this place, right here, my home, the place where I become complete

You can ridicule me all you want for you being nothing but an empty shell with your dreams tossed aside whenever an opportunity comes your way

You can hide your failure in pretending to care about me

You, who doesn’t want to get hurt is all, stay still

You say that its common sense and it’s a world where cowardliness is a cure

Instead of you, I give respect to everyone who has scars and celebrate to those who overcame it

I’ve fallen into a deep hole before

Pretending to live without any problems to my family and friends

The loath and arrogance of mine that mixed together

I didn’t even like the eyes that looked at me from my own reflection

The depletion of passion

The behaviors that I detested more than anyone

Now that it’s become my problem, I feel like dying

I can’t really feel other things

I’ve seen myself mess up but I can’t find it to kill myself

But back then, it didn’t seem like a waste if I threw away everything I had somewhere far away

I wore myself out from digging like a maniac in finding things that can comfort me

Peace never had a relation with me

I lingered in raising my voice to hide my insecurities and grew angry when talks of pride were brought up, making me dizzy

It was a time where I didn’t even know who was next to me

At the time, I didn’t believe in god but I couldn’t believe in my messed-up self so for quite a while, I couldn’t grasp life

Mornings never felt refreshing no matter how many hours I slept

The anxiety and pressure that crushed my youth

Foam, traps, and temptations that came instead of opportunities

All those factors faced from the front; the next time I’ll make sure to hold onto those I lost from the beginning

If I try to catch up hurriedly, I slowly begin to forget which one is me

If you have to stop, then stop now

Because we lose those important to us too often

E-Sens Returns to Twitter, Foreshadowing a Comeback?

Just four months ago in April, the court ruled that artist E-Sens of Supreme Team serve an imprisonment of a year and two months, a probation of two years, serve 160 hours of community service, and pay a fine of 2,133,500won (roughly $1888USD) for marijuana use. The case opened nearly a year ago from today on August of 2011 when the artist was arrested in his home with the suspicion of marijuana use and when investigators looked further into the case, E-Sens admitted to using marijuana on 5 accounts beginning from October of 2009 till August of 2011. After the investigation, a press conference was held in which he said to the reporters, "I admit my fault and I will take a time of reflection in looking over my actions."

And today - to be precise, August 21, 2012 - E-Sens makes his slight unofficial comeback via Twitter. Although he had deleted his Twitter account prior to the arrest, everyone was curious about his whereabouts and when he'd be coming back. Well, today's the lucky day. As his first tweet, he tweeted, "I started Twitter again~~~ I'm going here and there following people, but I'm slow !!!!!"

Hints of E-Sens' whereabouts dropped few months ago when Simon D, fellow member of Supreme Team, tweeted a photo of E-Sens writing lyrics and since then, the artists of Amoeba Culture have been subtly leaving photos or tweets about him. The most recent one was when a photo of the Amoeba Culture artists - Dynamic Duo, Simon D, Rhythm Power, and Zion.T with E-Sens as well - was taken in a recording studio for their upcoming company compilation album. In seeing and hearing that E-Sens took part and his verse labeled as a "killer" verse, it looks like the rapper is gearing to make his comeback.

Now the big question is, will he come back as Supreme Team first or finally release that solo album he's been delaying? Either way, it's good to have him back. Follow @ikesens on Twitter if you haven't already!